Smith's Monthly #9 Page 14

  “I was going to suggest the same,” Roscoe said, smiling at her. “Better we know where we are headed before we go wondering around and get lost in this huge ship.”

  “Any early theories as to what this ship is?” Fisher asked Maria.

  She took a deep breath and for the first time since Chairman Ray had sent her the first data, she decided to mention her theory.

  “I think this is a Seeder Mother Ship,” she said.

  “A what?” both Fisher and Roscoe asked at exactly the same time.

  “There is one theory in history that Seeders have been seeding for more millions and millions of years than we can imagine,” Maria said.

  Roscoe and Fisher nodded.

  Maria went on. “One theory is that a wave, a direction of seeding from galaxy to galaxy starts with a Mother Ship. Maybe this very ship has started many waves, then been restocked and sent ahead again. We don’t know, or maybe this is a new ship, if one-point-four-millions years is new.”

  Roscoe sat back and looked at her, his dark eyes intense. Fisher was just looking puzzled.

  “Remember,” Maria said, “that I showed you the big spiral galaxy that I think this ship came from. And that our branch of Seeders left that galaxy and started off in this direction.”

  She could tell that Roscoe was starting to understand. In the short time they had been working together, she had come to realize he was really smart, maybe one of the smartest people she had ever met.

  “They sent a wave of Seeder ships off toward here,” Maria said, “then launched this ship so that it would meet the front wave, allow us to staff it and start off in a completely new direction as well as going to Andromeda.”

  “What made you think this?” Fisher asked.

  “I’ve thought it right from the start,” Maria said. “But it was only speculation. Now that I’ve seen early scans of the inside of this ship, I’m fairly sure.”

  “Why?” Roscoe asked, his dark eyes focused on her like she hoped they would be for a long time to come.

  “That hanger deck full of ships, to start with,” she said. “They are frontline seeder ships almost identical to the ones working Andromeda Galaxy right now.”

  Again both men nodded.

  “Noticed that,” Roscoe said.

  “And because Seeders always just move to the next closest galaxy,” she said, smiling at Roscoe’s wonderful eyes as he intently stared at her. “And the closest galaxies were not in this direction from that huge spiral galaxy. In fact, taking this route to our Local Group of galaxies might be the third wave of Seeders that left that galaxy.”

  “Oh,” Roscoe said, shaking his head.

  “Do we Seeders ever do anything small?” Fisher asked.

  “No, even my headache is large trying to grasp this,” Roscoe said.

  At that, Maria wanted to just stand and kiss him as she laughed. But somehow, she managed not to.

  Barely.

  FOURTEEN

  TO ROSCOE, SPENDING that first night on Fisher’s ship seemed almost like camping back when he was a kid on his home planet.

  He could feel the pressure of the huge ship around him like he was in a deep forest a long ways from any city.

  And he could really feel the responsibility of the safety of the fourteen people in the ship with him. So far nothing at all had seemed threatening, and the more they learned about the big ship, the more he doubted there was much to worry about as far as attack.

  But even still, for the moment, he and his men had set up a rotating guard. And Maria and Fisher both had one of their people each stay on the scanning duty, running as many scans as possible continuously.

  So at any given point, three of the twelve of them were awake.

  He wasn’t scheduled for a two-hour guard shift yet, but there was no chance that he could sleep. He normally didn’t need much sleep, but he knew at some point he would have to get some. However, just lying there in the small room they had assigned him and staring at the ceiling wasn’t going to work, and he knew himself enough to know that.

  So, he took a shower, then changed clothes into a white t-shirt and comfortable slacks, then with his pulse rifle over his shoulder, he wandered back first to the dinner area and picked up a container of water and a piece of dark bread that had tasted fantastic and slightly sweet at dinner. Then he went down the wide hallway to the big scanning room.

  Not only were the two there that had shifts, and Jonas standing against the wall near them on guard duty, but Maria was there, hunched forward, staring at something in her heads-up projection.

  Obviously, she couldn’t sleep either, although her red hair looked damp like she had also taken a shower, and she had on what looked like a form of cotton pajama bottoms with blue flowers and a sweatshirt and slippers of some sort.

  Her red hair was pulled back tight and he could see the freckles on her neck.

  She was unbelievably attractive, even hunched forward over a work station like that. He just wanted to go up and rub her shoulders and kiss her neck, but now was far, far from the time.

  “Couldn’t sleep either, huh?” he asked about halfway across the room after he nodded to Jonas.

  She turned and smiled at him, her smile beaming, clearly glad to see him. He liked that a lot.

  “Far too excited,” she said. “Take a look at this.”

  She turned back to her board and the image floating in the air in front of her.

  He stared for a moment, but couldn’t make any sense of it. It seemed to be some sort of writing. “What am I looking at?”

  “I think it’s the name of this big ship,” she said.

  Her fingers were running over her board faster than he had ever seen anyone move. The freckles on her shoulders almost moving in a dance as her arms and hands flashed over the controls.

  “I’m working on language programs,” she said. “As with all human cultures, languages all have certain basics and when I hit on the right combination, I’ll have the language. We’ve been loading language into our language program from around the big ship since the first scans. From signs on doors to warning signs in engineering to this.”

  “Will we then be able to internalize it,” he asked, “so we can understand it when we read anything on this ship?”

  She nodded. “Easily. Just as we do with any human culture, I can have all of us speaking and reading this ship’s old language once we crack the pattern.”

  “Got it!” one of Fisher’s people named Dan said from beside Maria. “Transferring it to you now.”

  “Wonderful,” Maria said, almost jumping in her chair with excitement. Roscoe had to admit, it was impossible around her to not be excited.

  “Got what?” Fisher asked as he came into the room, clearly also not able to sleep.

  “Language,” Maria said. “Dan cracked it.”

  Fisher came up behind his team member and gave him a congratulatory pat on the shoulder.

  Then Maria clapped her hands and started laughing as she stared at the projection of the words.

  “What’s so funny?” Fisher asked a moment before Roscoe could.

  “You folks want to know the name of the big ship we are sitting inside?”

  “Very much so,” Fisher said, smiling back at the infectious excitement from Maria.

  “This ship is called Morning Song.”

  All Roscoe could do was shake his head.

  A giant ship, that if not stopped, would destroy planets and kill billions, was named Morning Song.

  He flat wasn’t sure what to think of that.

  FIFTEEN

  THE FIRST TWO days were nothing but one exciting discovery after another on the scans of the big ship. She hadn’t slept much, but that didn’t matter. This was the find of a dozen lifetimes and sleeping seemed to be an inconvenience.

  And she loved spending time around Roscoe and he didn’t seem to sleep much either. She loved his smile, his intense questioning eyes, and his dry sense of humor.

  And he
seemed to want to be around her as well, which pleased her more than she wanted to admit.

  Now, all of her team and Roscoe and two of his team were in the big scanning room, waiting the last few minutes for the ship to jump to trans-tunnel flight. Fisher and Callie were back in the Command Center with a guard from Roscoe’s team and the rest of Fisher’s team were in the first scan center with another of Roscoe’s team on guard with them.

  She had no idea what was going to happen next. She hoped nothing but getting in contact with Chairman Ray.

  In real time, Chairman Ray and his people had had fourteen days to go over those first scans. She hoped they had a lot more information. The possibility of that had her really excited.

  But she could feel her stomach twisting in slight worry as well. No telling what would happen next when the ship jumped back to trans-tunnel drive. It might dump them back into space and not let them back inside.

  Anything was possible.

  “Ten seconds,” Fisher said from the Command Center.

  Maria glanced away from her screen and up at Roscoe’s serious face. She was really starting to admire him and like him more than she wanted to admit. But right now he was focused and on guard, standing close to her. And she actually felt far safer with him close by.

  That surprised her as well, but she liked it.

  She had a scan running of the Morning Song’s big Command Center to see if anything changed when the jump to trans-tunnel happened. She didn’t expect to see anything, but she had decided to scan there even so.

  “Two. One. Now,” Fisher said.

  After a few seconds of waiting, Fisher said, “Chairman Ray, do you copy?”

  It took another moment before Chairman Ray’s voice came back strong. “Strong and clear.”

  On a center screen in the room, Chairman Ray’s smiling face appeared. He was clearly relieved and Maria could hear applause around him over the communications link.

  Maria let out the breath she was holding. Beside her she could feel Roscoe relax and exhale as well.

  “Sending data we have taken in the last two days on the Morning Song,” Fisher said to Ray.

  “Receiving,” Ray said after a moment. “And you got the language figured out I see.”

  “We do, Chairman,” Fisher said. “But we will need to access the big ship’s command systems and other systems to figure out the Morning Song’s mission. We will be doing that next unless your data bring up something we have not yet discovered.”

  Maria watched as Chairman Ray shook his head, his long gray hair moving on his shoulders as he did. “We have found, in searching carefully everything you sent us at first, no real threats from the ship itself.”

  “Besides getting lost,” Fisher said.

  Ray laughed. “There is that. That ship is impossible for most to comprehend the size.”

  “It is,” Fisher said.

  “So, I assume Chairman Mundy and Chairman Boone are on this link,” Ray asked.

  “Everyone on the ship is listening and on the link,” Fisher said. “We seem to all be in the belly of this beast together.”

  Ray nodded. “Chairman Mundy,” Ray asked Roscoe, “Do you see any obvious dangers in exploring?”

  “Nothing, Chairman,” Roscoe said, “after two days of scanning, it seems clear.”

  “Chairman Boone?” he asked.

  “No dangers that my team has found, Chairman,” Maria said, agreeing with Roscoe. In two days she and her team had found nothing that seemed even slightly dangerous.

  Ray nodded, then asked Maria, “Do you think this is still a Seeder ship?”

  “I do,” Maria said, her stomach twisting in excitement. “I’m convinced this is a Seeder Mother Ship and the mission of this ship is to find a large crew and leave the Milky Way in a different direction from Andromeda and the path of the current leading edge of seeding that is going on in Andromeda.”

  Chairman Ray nodded. “We have come to that same conclusion.”

  Maria felt her heart race. These Mother Ships had only been a distant and faint myth of Seeders. Now she found herself inside one.

  Then Chairman Ray’s face became very serious. “We have exactly 161 days before the big ship plows into a populated system and takes out a moon and a number of other bases. We might be able to get those evacuated in time and have started that preparation now.”

  “Good,” Roscoe said softly beside her.

  Ray went on. “But the Morning Song plows into your home base world, Fisher and Callie, in 167 days and destroys it completely. We are mounting preparations for an emergency evacuation if it comes to that, but will only be able to get a few million out of the billion now on that world.”

  “We’ll get it stopped, Chairman,” Fisher said, and Maria found herself nodding in agreement.

  “Your timeline is much shorter, you understand,” Chairman Ray said.

  “Twenty-two days and four hours,” Fisher said. “We will stop it, turn it, or destroy it in that amount of time.”

  Maria again felt her stomach twist. This ship was the greatest treasure from the history of the Seeders. They had to stop it, she understood that, but if she had anything to say about it, they would do it without destroying it. They flat had to.

  “Get started and dump data with each trans-tunnel flight,” Chairman Ray said. “We’ll do what we can in helping from this side.”

  “Thank you, Chairman,” Fisher said.

  “Good luck,” Chairman Ray said and the screen went blank.

  Maria did her best to just let herself breathe.

  “Chairmen Boone and Mundy to the kitchen,” Fisher said. “Five minutes.”

  Roscoe smiled at her as she stood. “Looks like we get to go exploring very soon.”

  At that she actually smiled, pushing back the ticking clock and letting the excitement of exploring an ancient ship the size of a large moon come forward.

  “I love exploring new places,” she said, smiling at him.

  “Actually,” he said, “so do I.” Then he smiled and raised one eyebrow.

  She wasn’t at all sure what he meant exactly, but she liked the idea either way.

  She laughed and said, “Why does that not surprise me.”

  SIXTEEN

  ROSCOE KNEW THERE were two major points of danger for the crew. And about fifty million minor ones. But those he couldn’t deal with. But he could take a few precautions on the major danger moments.

  His first major point was when they first left Fisher’s ship. If the big ship had a defense system, leaving the ship would be one place they all would stand no chance of any defense.

  Of course, the big ship could have taken them off of Fisher’s ship at any point, but it had not.

  Their scans showed that when they had arrived, the big ship powered up all environmental systems. After two days, every room and area in the ship had breathable atmosphere and was heated. Even the warehouses.

  But no other systems seemed to be running at all. And that told him they were going to have to turn them on.

  Fisher’s science team had informed him that the ship had maintained vacuum atmosphere interior and extremely cold temps before they arrived. Maria had confirmed that through her team.

  So it seemed the ship was welcoming them by at least turning on the lights. Roscoe wasn’t so sure if he liked that or not.

  At least it allowed them to explore easily.

  Maria and her people had also discovered that the ship had repair units that replicated and replaced any near-failing part during the long voyage. Some of those were on tasks now in various places in the ship.

  Roscoe just found it all stunning.

  So now, they had done all the scans they could. They had to step out of Fisher’s ship and onto the decks of the big hanger.

  He and Jonas were going to be the two to do it first.

  And he had convinced Fisher they needed to do that one act while still in contact with Chairman Ray and send him all scans of the result.

/>   So one hour after they had gotten in touch with Chairman Ray again, and with just under an hour left in trans-tunnel flight for the big ship, Jonas and Ray stood side-by-side, rifles over their shoulders, ready to go. They had decided to not seem threatening in any way, which was why they had their guns on their shoulders.

  “See you in a moment,” Roscoe said to Fisher and Maria.

  She smiled, but he could see the worry in her eyes.

  “I’ll jump us,” Roscoe said to Jonas, who nodded.

  “Do your thing, boss,” Jonas said.

  The next moment Roscoe had them standing on the big deck about a hundred paces from Fisher’s ship.

  The air smelled sort of stale, but not bad, and had a slight chill to it.

  Roscoe looked around, not sure what to expect.

  The monster room around them was too large to grasp. Like a distant sky, the ceiling overhead seemed to be full of lights. To his right, Roscoe could see a wall of some sort, but he had no idea how far that was, or even how tall that wall might be.

  Scale was totally lost in a space like this, so much so, it almost made him dizzy.

  “Wow,” Jonas said, slowly turning to look around. “Scans don’t even come close to showing the immensity of this place.”

  “Any problems?” Chairman Ray asked, his voice clear to Roscoe.

  Roscoe knew that about a thousand people were watching their every move and monitoring all data they were sending back from their sensors. Roscoe hadn’t wanted them wearing helmets, so they had on communications links with implanted mikes and ear buds. And about three ways to track them if the ship took them somewhere else.

  Anyone stepping onto this ship would have those communication methods and tracking devices.

  Maria answered him. “All scans of the Morning Song are showing no alarms or activity at all.”

  “We ants out here on the big field see nothing either,” Roscoe said, slowing turning and admiring the massive hanger deck.

  “Seems the ship doesn’t mind us,” Maria said.